Despite the apparently high diplomatic level of official meetings during Ahmeti’s tour, the political public in Macedonia remains uncertain as to the motive of his hasty diplomatic activities. Macedonia’s largest political parties have mostly tried to act neutrally, stressing the “private”, i.e. informal character of the visits (VMRO-DPMNE) despite the fact that in Washington, Athens and Sofia Ahmeti was joined by Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister Musa Xhaferi, while in Paris, Brussels and The Hague he was escorted by Deputy Prime Minister in charge of European Affairs Fatmir Besimi. Macedonian opposition (SDSM) have stuck to its position that “any initiative that contributes to the integration process is welcome”, while analysts believe it would be illusory to expect Ahmeti to resolve the name dispute with Greece or disagreements with Bulgaria.

Ahmeti’s initiatives have only contributed to strengthening Prime Minister Gruevski’s political position and deepening the mistrust of Macedonians towards ethnic Albanians. Only a few months ago Ahmeti was directly informed of the real situation regarding the name issue by the UN negotiator for the Macedonian name dispute Mathew Nimitz, so he was well aware of the outcome of his tour before he even started it. However, his voters are not aware of those facts.

The Albanian opposition Democratic Party (PDSh-DPA) has remained loyal to its unusual policy of using “silence as a form of criticism”, while Albanian political commentators share the view that Ahmeti’s visits simply represent a part of his pre-election campaign for the presidential election scheduled for next year that will quite probably be held together with early parliamentary election.

Athens and Sofia have openly coordinated their position that the European Commission should postpone the initiation of negotiations with Skopje, which further explains why Ahmeti’s mission in the neighbouring countries ended in a fiasco. Moreover, Brussels’ decision to share NATO’s official view that resolving the name dispute is a precondition for further integration processes as well as their enhanced criticism of media freedom, corruption, party-biased judicial system and public administration show that Ahmeti failed in its mission to persuade his European interlocutors to open Macedonia’s road to Brussels.

The question is whether it was necessary for one of Albanian leaders to go on a US and EU tour to realise what was obvious to every connoisseur of Macedonia’s foreign affairs? The silence from official Washington, pre-election messages from German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the necessary pause in taking new members to the EU, obvious avoidance of European politicians and EU officials to mention Macedonia in relation to future integration processes – all these should be sufficiently clear signs for every politician to realise in which direction the winds are blowing. The situation is even clearer in Macedonia where Prime Minister Gruevski insists on his firm policy towards Greece and introduces increasing pro-eastern tendencies accompanied with intensified national(istic) and patriotic language, rude treatment of the opposition and repression against the opposition media.

A FOREIGN-POLITICAL INITIATIVE THAT SERVES DOMESTIC PURPOSES

These developments in Macedonia and abroad support the thesis that the main aim of Ahmeti’s diplomatic tour was to impress his Albanian electorate. Albanian voters are increasingly louder in their demands, expecting Ahmeti to fulfil his pre-election promises and to improve the situation of Albanians in Macedonia, especially as regards their economic rights, rather than to resolve the dispute with Greece and the national identity of their Macedonian fellow citizens. Ahmeti should focus his attention to the most socially disadvantaged members of his electorate, especially in the Skopje and Kumanovo regions which are traditional crisis areas of interethnic tensions and therefore mark the highest emigration rate among the Albanian population, notably among young and educated people.

Certain leaders of DUI share the view that Ahmeti’s foreign-political initiative was motivated by domestic purposes, among other due to DUI’s decreasing popularity among the Albanian population. Ahmeti has not realised his promises despite the fact that his political party has been in the government for nine years (2002-2006 and 2008-2013) and has held power in most municipalities with predominantly ethnic Albanian population.

During the insurgency in 2001 Albanians expressed three fully justified demands:

-official use of the Albanian language,

-appropriate representation in state administration and institutions, and

-application of the consensus democracy model that would prevent ethnic majorisation.

Ahmeti has only partly fulfilled those three demands. However, he failed to stop the emigration of Albanians, to attract investments and to open new work places, his party is involved in crime and corruption at all levels and the quality of his staff is below expectations. Moreover, DUI has become a synonym of violence and crime, especially during the pre-election campaign and the elections. To a certain degree they have become even more negative than Menduh Thaçi’s DPA, although they have managed to hide that thanks to their dominance over the media, especially through their newspaper, the MRTV2 national television house and the Alsat-M private television house which is the Albanian equivalent of the Macedonian government propaganda machine.

At least 47 valuable golden artifacts have disappeared from the depot at the Museum of Macedonia in Skopje, a checkup has revealed. The valuables that have been discovered in recent archeological digs are believed to have been stolen. The daily says that most of them were golden earrings dating back from the age of Hellenism.